The blunder check

Every tactics article in this library ends with a habit, and if you read them together you will notice they are the same habit wearing different hats. Here it is in one place, with the reasons it fails and the way to make it stick.

The question

Before you release a move: "After this move, what can my opponent do to me?"

Concretely, in this order, for the position after your intended move:

1. Checks. Every check the opponent could give.
2. Captures. Everything of yours that could be taken, including pawns, counting pinned defenders as zero.
3. Threats. Any move that attacks two things, or attacks your king's squares, or attacks a loose piece.

Three lists, usually empty or nearly empty, ten seconds. When one of them has something in it, you look at it before you move. That is the whole method.

Why it fails

Everybody knows the question. The pattern pages show what happens anyway, so it is worth being honest about why:

• You asked it about the position before your move. The position that matters is the one after. Your move changed what is defended, what is on which line, and what the opponent can reach. Ask about the new position.
• You were excited. You found a good idea and wanted to play it. The check got skipped because it might say no. Strong players check their best ideas hardest.
• The move was “obvious”. Recaptures, developing moves, forced-looking moves. These are where the blunders live, precisely because nobody checks them.
• The clock. Under thirty seconds, the check is the first thing to go. The pattern pages show it plainly: the same player, the same mistake, three times as often in blitz. If you want fewer blunders, the fastest lever is a slower time control.

Candidate moves, briefly

The blunder check is a filter, not a way to find moves. For finding them, the old advice holds: name two or three candidate moves before you calculate any of them, so the first idea does not eat all your time. Then run the blunder check on the one you choose. Most club players do it the other way round: calculate the first idea deeply, play it, and never look at the second.

Making it automatic

A habit is a trigger plus an action. The trigger here is physical: your hand moving toward a piece. Attach the question to that. For a few weeks it will feel slow. Then it will feel like nothing, and the tags in your games will thin out.

Two ways to train it away from the board:

• Repair. Every position the site hands you is one where the check failed. Doing the check consciously in those positions, then finding the move, is the retrieval that makes it stick in games.
• Review your tags, not your games. Once a week, open the pattern page for your most common tag. Look at where in the game and on what clock it clusters. That tells you when you stop asking the question, which is worth more than knowing that you do.

The tell

You are about to play a move quickly because it is obvious, or because you are winning, or because you are excited about it. Those three feelings are the trigger to slow down, every time.

The habit

Hand moves, question fires: checks, captures, threats, after my move. Nothing else in this library will save you more rating points.